The Hardbitten Sex Business Laid Bare, Comically and Less So
Charles IsherwoodFebruary 9, 2015: A rear view of the famous Hollywood sign, seen as through a haze of smog, makes an aptly symbolic backdrop for Pretty Filthy, the new show from the Civilians about the ups and downs of life in the pornography industry. The epicenter of the business is the San Fernando Valley, just a few freeway miles from the canyons where real movie stars live, but as this pretty funny, pretty sad and, yes, pretty dirty show affirms, the existential distance between the two worlds could be measured in light-years. The show, which opened on Sunday at the Abrons Arts Center, takes the form of a revue, combining songs by the company’s ever-reliable Michael Friedman and scenes written by Bess Wohl. As is always the case with Civilians shows, the material derives from interviews with actual people, from the hardened workers behind the scenes (“Two things you need to shoot porn? A camera and a thumb”) to the performers baring their all under the lights (“It was like being with a corpse,” one complains, “a corpse who giggled”). Of giggles there are quite a few in Pretty Filthy. It’s considerably more successful at mining the absurd humor in the porn world, without resorting to sniggering condescension (well, almost never), than fictional plays like Elaine May’s Adult Entertainment or David West Read’s The Performers. Still the laughter has a way of sticking in your throat.
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